Out of nowhere, Sir Gino cast magic on me, and before I could even react, my legs gave out and my mind became so hazy, I could barely form thoughts. It took everything to resist the wave of sleep that washed over me. I couldn’t even speak. Bridgette scooped me up and began running away.
“Thank you... Sir Ginorious...” Through my fading consciousness, I could see that Bridgette was on the verge of tears.
“Ana!!!” Sir Gino roared. “For Ana!!! For her, I will become a hero who doesn’t fear death!!!”
It was as if he were pulling these words straight from his soul until his own existence was but a feeble candle in the wind. It was a tragic roar.
✦ ✦ ✦
I desperately tried to keep my eyes open while turning my head toward him, but all that was waiting for me was a scene of complete and utter despair that made my stomach turn.
Sir Gino raised his blade and charged by himself into the enemy formation. Their forces, ten thousand strong, prepared themselves to intercept him. Burned into my eyes was the visage of a single man with a sword charging into a sea of enemies. There was no chance for his victory. This went far beyond recklessness, straight into the realm of absolute tragedy.
No! I don’t want you to die! Sir Gino! Please! Please don’t leave me a widow!
I struggled with all my might, making Bridgette lose her grip on me. Relief filled me as I dropped to the ground, knowing that now I could make my way over to Sir Gino. I began forcing my heavy limbs to move, crawling slowly back to him.
“Sir Gino... I will be by your side...”
I can fight. It’s something that I can actually do. If I don’t fight here, I’ll truly have been nothing but a burden to you. I won’t give up on my happiness. There’s no world in which I can be happy without you in it. I’ll fight with everything I have by your side so we can both emerge safely from this danger. I will sacrifice everything for that! I will absolutely never give up! I am going to do my best!
“Huh?”
All at once, the haze in my head dissipated and I felt a powerful heat from my abdomen. It was a heat that bubbled and circulated at an extreme rate, spreading throughout my body before I knew it. Suddenly, my surroundings went dark.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Whoa!”
While running toward the enemy forces, I felt a violent wave from behind me. It was so strong, I almost fell over. Wait, is this a mana quake? I quickly looked behind me and saw something that seemed almost unreal. Ana had lost consciousness but was enveloped in a bright light, her body slowly rising into the air.
“Ana...awakened?”
In order to use magic freely, one first had to construct magic circuits in their body and then create specific controls for each kind of magic they wanted to use. It was only after completing these steps that someone could cast spells, and it usually took a great deal of time to accomplish. However, “awakening” happened when these circuits and controls spontaneously formed on their own, without the person having to create them one by one.
Suddenly, the ground began to shake, making the enemy horses rear back and throw off some of their riders. The ensuing mana quake from an awakening was similar to the wavelengths from earth magic. It more directly affected the ground than living things, which was why the ground was shaking more violently than us atop it.
I’d read about this in records about Magic Monarchs from my past world. The same thing happened when the son of a carpenter in Nazareth awakened from the cross he was nailed to, and when the prince of Shakya awakened under a Bodhi tree. An earthquake always followed when a Magic Monarch awakened.
“Ana’s okay, she doesn’t need to be guarded any longer! All knights focus on protecting yourselves! Bridgette, make sure no one’s close enough to see up Ana’s skirt!”
In the distance, I could tell that Bridgette had been unsure of what was happening and hesitating in her actions but, after hearing what I said, was relieved and quickly shooed all the knights away. In the meantime, I ran back toward Ana.
In Buddhist paintings, the Buddha always sat in the center of a ring of light. This ring came to be called a halo, but that was only because in depictions, they made it look like it shone from behind them and made it smaller for the sake of composition. In reality, though, halos weren’t a two-dimensional circle but a three-dimensional sphere, much larger than a person’s body. This large ball of light was currently enveloping Ana’s entire body as she went through the awakening in her sleep.
Seeing this unknown phenomenon, the enemy began to panic and shoot at her, but it was useless. Mere arrows and magic couldn’t make so much as a dent in a Magic Monarch’s halo. Even if they used my golems or military magic from my past life, or somehow had a magic generator to create atomic mana to cast spells, or even an orbital magic strike to cast divine judgment, they wouldn’t even be able to touch a single hair on her head. The only thing that could touch her now was another Magic Monarch of equal or stronger power. Magic Monarchs not only had unbelievably high magic power, but impossibly high defense as well. That was why they were known as the strongest mages. Nothing this current army had could so much as scratch her. Within the absolute defense of her halo, nothing—not even poison or viruses could affect her.
As Ana slept within the sphere of light, her rise into the air stopped at about five metres and light began sprouting from her back, taking a shape that could even be seen by the naked eye due to how dense the mana particles were. This was something only Magic Monarchs were capable of.
Within the gentle light, white wings grew from her back. She looked absolutely divine as they spread. Bridgette fell to her knees and began to pray, tears of joy in her eyes. Now that her awakening had completed, Ana slowly opened her eyes, regaining consciousness.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ana—you don’t have to kill them. Just turn the ground into mud and then harden it to stop them,” I said urgently.
She was no longer a sorcerer who could only cast ember. Now that she’d awakened, she could use both chi and mana. Just as a butterfly fresh out of metamorphosis knew instinctively how to fly, Ana instinctively knew how to use all types of magic.
But even though she could freely use magic now, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t feel pain if she killed someone. It had hurt me a lot when I sentenced the former king of Thorsdale to death. I could only imagine what Ana would feel since she was even kinder than I was. All I needed her to do was capture the army and then I’d handle the rest. I’d be the one to shoulder the burden of taking their lives, not her.
“Understood! Here I go!”
The instant Ana activated her magic, the ground turned to mud, dropping every last one of the enemy forces into it, and then she solidified it, making it impossible for them to move. The hardened ground had turned into an obsidian substance with gold flecks.
My analytic eye was still activated, so when I analyzed the ground, I confirmed that she’d changed the ground to orichalcum, which wasn’t something that normal sorcerers could do. It required the extreme pressure that only Magic Monarchs were capable of. Most likely, in her urgency to harden the ground enough so that none of them could hurt us, she’d gone overboard and created this incredibly tough material.
“I...did it,” she said with a relieved smile.
After that, her wings of light disappeared and Ana fell to the ground. I quickly rushed to catch her. Despite having never used any magic but the very basic ember, Ana had just released a great amount of mana all at once, and as a result, she’d lost consciousness. I sighed with relief seeing that she’d just fallen asleep. I could really feel that we were safe now.
“Please leave the rest to me,” one of my knight commanders said. “Killing the enemies stuck in the ground will be no different from cutting the grass.”
“No, that’s okay. The Sevensworth territory is only a little farther. Let’s return there and send out squads to detain them all.”
Though the commander was raring to go at a single nod from me, I decided against his suggestion.
“There may not be enough time to return before they break out of the mud,” he advised.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. They can’t.”
The enemy forces were desperately slamming their shields and swords against the ground, trying to get free, but it was to absolutely no effect. They would just tire themselves out without making a single dent.
The magic particles in the very atomic structure of the ground had changed it to orichalcum, which had a strength beyond what anyone here could even fathom. Cutting it or melting it would only work if a Magic Monarch like Ana did it, or if they had an incredibly powerful industrial excavator like I’d had as an engineer.